Full Description: Presented by Karen Mapp, Ed.D., Director, Education Policy and Management Program, Harvard University and co-author of A Match on Dry Grass: Community Organizing as a Catalyst for School Reform and Beyond the Bake Sale: The Essential Guide to Family-School Partnerships.

Full Description: Presentation about Reach Out and Read, a national partnership with pediatricians, and Read to Grow, a CT partnership with hospitals and parents engage health professionals to improve outcomes for young children.

Full Description: This presentation, by Walter Gilliam, Director, Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy, Yale University, focuses on current research showing the critical value of interventions that equip early childhood educators to respond effectively to challenging behaviors and build strong relationships with parents.

Full Description: Presenter David Katz, MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP is the Founding Director, Prevention Research Center, Yale University and is known internationally for his expertise in nutrition, weight management, and chronic disease prevention, especailly childhood obesity.

8:30-9:30 am - Welcome and Keynote, Dr. Karen Mapp

Sparking the Fire: Parents and Community – Essential Ingredients for Sustainable Change

Dr. Mapp is an acclaimed national expert on parent and community influence on education. Co-author of A Match on Dry Grass: Community Organizing as a Catalyst for School Reform and Beyond the Bake Sale: The Essential Guide to Family-School Partnerships, she brings deep knowledge of the latest research, not only on why parent and community engagement is important, but how to do it well.

11:15-11:45 am - Grade Level Reading Campaign State Pacesetter Award

Ralph Smith will present the Grade Level Reading Campaign State Pacesetter Award to the State of Connecticut. Invited guests, Governor Dannel Malloy and State Education Commissioner Stefan Pryor.

11:45-12:30 pm - Lunch

2:15-3:15 pm - Closing Plenary, Dr. David Katz

Turning the Tide on Childhood Obesity: Being Part of the Solution

Dr. Katz is known internationally for his expertise in nutrition, weight management, and chronic disease prevention, especailly childhood obesity. A dynamic speaker and leading voice in medical media, Dr. Katz has been acclaimed by peers as the “poet laureate of health promotion.”

3:15-3:30 pm - Wrap-Up And Prizes

AM BREAKOUT SESSIONS 9:45-11:00 AM (SELECT ONE).

AM BREAKOUT 1: Building A "3 to 3" System

To give young children the best chance at school success, early care and education providers and K-12 schools need to be connected and aligned in their approaches to instruction, professional development, family engagement and a host of other issues. Middletown [am session] and West Hartford [pm session] will share their learning as they have worked to implement this vision in recent years. Participants will also be exposed to a newly developed 3 to 3 framework, a self-assessment tool designed to help communities work towards aligned systems.

Andrea Brinnel, Education Consultant, CT State Dept. of Education

AM session: Middletown– Helene Figueroa, Consultant, and representatives from the community and school district

AM BREAKOUT 2: Changing The World, One Dinner At A Time

Come be inspired by the “giving circle” concept, a simple but powerful way to create awareness, build enthusiasm and develop resources for issues you care about. Learn about Dining For Women, a nonprofit organization that grew from one pot-luck dinner party in 2003 to more than 200 chapters around the world and raised more than a million dollars in less than ten years. Learn key principles and how to adapt this model to support Discovery work in your local community.

(Note: Workshop assumes basic knowledge of the social media tools under discussion.) Building a social media strategy that inspires action involves careful matching of the right tools with the right message and audience. In this workshop, we’ll use real-world examples to identify the pros and cons of the major social media tools – from Facebook to Twitter to blogs to video sharing sites—and discuss best practices for growing an active community of supporters.

Carol Buckheit, President, Nonprofit MediaWorks

AM BREAKOUT 4: Conversation With Karen Mapp (only offered in AM)

Karen Mapp’s morning keynote will highlight the latest research on why parent and community engagement are critical to systemic change in education, and how communities have succeeded in building and sustaining that engagement. In this follow-up session, participants will have a chance to engage more deeply in a question-and-answer with Dr. Mapp and tap into her substantial knowledge of effective practices for engaging families.

AM BREAKOUT 5: Data: Bringing Partners Together

Data can be seen as the key to collaboration – or one of the biggest barriers. But what if partners from all sectors actually came together to share existing information on children’s development and learning and available services and resources to address needs? Come to this session to learn about how communities around the country are building off the successes of The Strive Partnership in Cincinnati to share and use data through an open source data sharing platform and dashboard developed in Cincinnati in partnership with Microsoft. Learn about overcoming “imperfect data,” privacy concerns, and much more. Participants are strongly urged to attend this session with community teams.

Research shows that when health professionals are partners in early literacy, parents’ behavior, beliefs and attitudes about reading aloud to their children can be profoundly influenced. Learn about how Reach Out and Read, a national partnership with pediatricians, and Read to Grow, a CT partnership with hospitals and parents, can become an integral component of Discovery efforts to engage health professionals to improve outcomes for young children.

Marilyn Augustyn, MA Medical Director, and

Christine Garber, CT Program Director, Reach Out and Read

Anthony DiLauro, Executive Director, Read to Grow

AM BREAKOUT 7: Parent Researchers: A New Model For Parent Engagement

Come to this session to learn about some of the exciting work that parents around the state have been engaged in – e.g. creating a town playspace for young children, building support for anti-bullying efforts, creating a citywide birthday party for one-year olds – as well as learning about a new approach to parent engagement. In the PIAR (Parent Information Action Research Project), parents determine their own action objectives and learning goals.

Dr. Paige Bray, Director, Parent Information Action Research Project

Parent Researchers from Bridgeport, East Hartford, New Haven, Torrington and Waterbury

Research has long shown a predictive connection between student discipline and academic success. Recent headlines about preschool expulsions raised consciousness that student patterns of behavior in school start early. Learn about current research showing the critical investment value of interventions that equip early childhood educators to respond effectively to challenging behaviors and build strong relationships with parents to help all young learners start school on the right track.

Walter Gilliam, Director, Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy, Yale University

AM BREAKOUT 9: Systemic Suport For Vulnerable Children And Their Families

Brain research clearly shows that high-risk environments lead to “toxic” levels of stress among young children and can result in decreased learning, behavioral and emotional problems, and poor health. Now in ten sites in CT, Child FIRST is a collaborative intervention model that brings together a broad array of community partners to combine intensive home visiting and care coordination to decrease the incidence of emotional disturbance and developmental and learning problems among the most vulnerable young children and families. Learn how this system-spanning model works on the ground in a variety of communities across the state.